Edmund White's "Terre Haute," which recently finished a successful run in Britain, involves the relationship between a thinly veiled, Vidal-like writer named James and a McVeigh-like killer, Harrison. In one sexually charged scene, James comes on to Harrison during a prison visit, gushing: "If I thought you'd never know, I'd unzip that orange jumpsuit just a bit so I could see your chest. Touch it." The McVeigh character opens his shirt to show off his torso as a "gift" to the Vidal character.

Anything to make a buck off a dead person, I guess. I have no knowledge of Gore Vidal's sexual orientation, but I can assure you that had the real Timothy McVeigh ever heard a male say that to him, his response would have been quite different. In other words, McVeigh was straight with a capital "S."